Hello love,
In this week’s video I wanted to talk about creating a foundation of true nourishment for emotional eating. I found that this is missing when we talk about emotional eating. Nourishing the body builds the body physically. Usually with emotional eating we only look at the emotions but 1 key factor to emotional eating is our nervous system and physical body. We need to truly nourish our bodies through proper digestion and absorption of nutrients in order to create a robust body that is able to process those emotions.
Our body creates a biochemical response to our emotions. So we need to process them through the body which needs certain nutrients. The stronger our physical nervous system the better we can hold and process through our emotions.
Nourishing our bodies with amazing nutrient-dense whole organic foods and certain supplements impacts the way we process our emotions.
Have you been emotionally eating for a while?
Usually when you chronically emotionally eat or have regular binges you deplete your body. The foods you might go for are usually processed foods or foods that give you that momentary “high”. I would usually go for foods like that myself. Usually the sugary, cheesy and gluten filled foods give us the biggest high and we crave them.
To move away from emotional eating we need to process the emotions underneath but we also need to be nourishing our body so we can physically process them.
How does food impact our mood?
Whatever we eat needs to be digested. In a perfect scenario we are breaking down the food and absorbing the nutrients. If we are eating heath giving foods and absorb the nutrients we have the building blocks to creating a healthy body, healthy cells and a healthy nervous system. This is the foundation to health.
When we eat more processed foods they can create inflammation in our digestive tract. This inflammation impacts our moods.
When we have health giving foods and good digestion we support our microbiome in the gut. This is our second brain and connects to our brain via the vagus nerve. The gut also produces neurotransmitters that is used by the brain. However, when we eat foods that deplete the gut we impact the production of neurotransmitters and feed the “bad” bacteria which create toxic by-products. These toxins can impact our mood as they travel to the brain.
When we have proper digestion and are eating those heath giving foods it supports the brain and our moods. The gut will be producing neurotransmitters and they body will have an abundance of nutrients to support brain function and the nervous system.
Proper nourishment + digestion is one factor that helps with balancing moods and takes the edge off of emotional eating. Another factor is looking at the emotions under the emotional eating and the thoughts that we think. Building up our physical body is foundational though.
Structure to create intuition…
A lot of the times I find we assume we know what is good for us but a lot of my clients need to relearn what is heath giving foods. In our society there is tricky advertising that makes you think x,y,z is nourishing to you. Sometimes we need another pair of eyes to see what might be missing. It’s important as you start experimenting with nourishment to have a guide or structure you can learn from to create your own flow and intuition.
So to summarize food + digestion impacts our mood. It is one factor that impacts our emotions which impacts our emotional eating. If you have any comments I’d love to hear from you!
To nourishment,
Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist + Emotional Eating Expert.
